i’m an odd duck
In the pouring rain.
A poet with muddy tail feathers
And an unusual refrain.
Memorial: A Villanelle
Memorial, or, The sun cannot break its shackles…
Midday softens under the fog-weighted shroud,
A black-winged bird scrapes the slate-gray sky.
The sun cannot break its shackles of sullen cloud.
The crow cries, harsh and unavowed,
Your memory arises in reply–
Midday softens under the fog-weighted shroud.
I forgot the time the words were said aloud,
And then I forgot the way and words to cry–
The sun cannot break its shackles of sullen cloud.
The stillness of that moment returns to enshroud
Me in this autumn day in July,
Midday softens under the fog-weighted shroud.
Again that cry, like yesterday spoke aloud.
Though summer wings from winter memories fly,
The sun cannot break its shackles of sullen cloud.
But who could stand before the sun unbowed,
And, unblinking, its simple rays defy?
Midday softens under the fog-weighted shroud–
The sun cannot break its shackles of sullen cloud.
Vitals
He’d die,
Accompanied
By his rifle,
Steeped in sweat.
Not disinfectant.
The oximeter, low.
No breath is free.
Each is enlisted.
They wake him
To take vitals.
A prisoner of war,
His blood let,
Not to a lab,
To madder root.
It was lunacy.
Men cut
Easier’n cane
They raised.
Lashed- eyes,
And back.
In between,
He waited
For a bullet
To the head.
Not a tumor.
A prison,
The Senate.
Hospitals.
Battle-brought
Nearly home.
Unpoetry: Defining Happiness for Others
Someone recently told me that my poetry makes them sad.
It shook me for a moment.
When writing I’m happy with the construct and the trying.
I understand that the same gritty memories that joyfully remind me of living,
In another person with a different view,
Could strike a nerve of loneliness and dying.
In writing, I want to make folks happy- at least to a degree.
The problem is, of course, that the lenses I use to see the world are molded to fit me.
While I can imagine life in other shoes,
The truth is that all I see is shadows on the wall.
The well-turned phrase that makes my inner being rise,
Is the same ghastly thought making another spirit fall.
There is a constant tension in the dualism of objective subjectivity.
Thought I try with all my will to record truth in all I see,
Each time I write I find I’m locked in time, place, and me.
In society we learn the difference between our essence and our characterization,
By traveling through the minefield of office, role, and station.
Ultimately we are people of the pack, of tribe, and of nation.
Despite our own internal self, we live towards expectations.
While I acknowledge that I am not always the things I present myself to be,
When it comes to seeing this through the eyes of other,
The focus slips through difficulty.
While I search for clarity, every action is shrouded in doubt.
Conceptually I want to know the motivations of others,
But in practical process they wear me out.
Prediction
I don’t know
When the madness began
But I do know
How and when
The madness will end.